With the grasscourt season now in full swing, the past weeks tennis at Nottingham saw one of the first set of tournaments taking place in the build up to Wimbledon. Previous months of build up to the second year of the Aegon Open saw fans waiting in anticipation as big names such as Madison Keys, Victoria Azarenka and Caroline Wozniacki were announced. Sadly Keys and Azarenka had to withdraw through injury along with other names nearer the time of the tournament like last year’s winner Anna Konjuh who had a back injury. Despite a fair few of withdrawals the quality of tennis was right up there and the entry list was still littered with quality with World number 18 Karolina Pliskova taking up the number 1 seeding ahead of Britain’s own Johanna Konta who was the number 2 seed for the tournament.
Switching focus from the British players, there were a number international players who impressed too, most notably number 1 seed Karolina Pliskova who only dropped 1 set in all her 5 matches played in the entire week which saw her win the Aegon Open in its second year of existence. Pliskova beat Alison Riske in the final who somewhat went under the radar the whole week having played most of her games on the outside courts, bar the semi-final and final. Riske went onto lose to Pliskova in straight sets but before her loss in the final she hadn’t dropped a set, playing quality tennis along the way. Another player who impressed me up until her 6-2, 6-2 semi-final’s loss to champion Pliskova was Puerto Rican Monica Puig who in her three games prior to being knocked out hadn’t lost a set as well. The thing I found most impressive about Puig was her serving which she managed to hold for the majority of her games. Furthermore Puig played well placed shots throughout the games she dominated and showed her ability to cover all areas of the court, definitely one to keep an eye out for a Wimbledon. The final player I’ll mention is Estonian Anett Kontaveit who arguably caused the upset of the tournament knocking out former World number 1 and number 3 tournament seed Caroline Wozniacki in 3 sets. The win against Wozniacki saw Kontaviet reach the quarters where her run ended, but the win against the Dane made onlookers take note of her ability, most notably of her hard hitting style. That performance along with ones in the previous matches make Kontaviet another one to watch in a couple of weeks at Wimbledon and we be looking to build upon that at Birmingham and Eastbourne. Overall it was a very entertaining week in Nottingham with a number of pre-tournament favourites showcasing why they were indeed the favourites along with a number of others who were making a comeback from injury or in Ashleigh Barty’s case a comeback from a different sport. The level of tennis I was highly impressed with as I was the previous year, however I would say this tournament was an improvement on last year’s with an awful lot of credit going to tournament supervisor Rebecca James who took last year’s feedback on-board in terms of the layout of the shops and food which was on offer, plus extra activities. The weather also aided the tournament with only really one day (quarter-finals day) suffering as a result of rain. They did manage to catch up on the Saturday before weather caused the special exhibition match between Pat Cash & Anne Keothavong against Jeremy Bates Jocelyn Rae to be cancelled. All was not lost though as they all did a Q&A instead which was very entertaining with Pat Cash reeling of some stories from his past. Following this we had the ladies final with the ladies doubles being forced to be played on one of the outside courts due to the weather limiting play again. Despite the slight dampener from the weather it was a fantastic week and I’m sure next year will get even better.
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Brief overview This was the inaugural edition of the tournament’s introduction due to an extra week between the French open and Wimbledon. It would be fair to say the tournament failed to attract as big names as the other UK grass court tournaments coming up in Birmingham and Eastbourne, however the quality of the tennis was never an issue. The tournament began with made the trip there to see the tournament kick off on Monday with with Belgian Yanina Wickmayer kicking us off with a straight sets win (6-4, 6-2) over 4th seed for the tournament Karin Knapp of Italy. It ended slightly later than scheduled due to rain taking out most of the weekend with 17-year-old Croatian Ana Konjuh defeating Monica Niculescu of Romania in a pulsating 3 sets match lasting over 2 hours. Konjuh was very impressive throughout the week having knocked out seeds Casey Dellacqua and Alison Riske, the later she beat on Sunday when she was forced to play two games with rain ruling out play all Saturday. Niculescu path to the final wasn’t straight forward either as she had to overcome the much fancied number 1 seed Agnieszka Radwanska in 3 sets. The downside There was very few and nothing to do with the quality of the tennis just some farce surrounding the tournament. Firstly the prices were quite high given no day, not even finals day was anywhere near to selling out and this priced a number of tennis fans out the game. The tickets could’ve easily been cheaper had the event not been security heavy and if they got rid of the court escorts which quite frankly resembled something between KGB officers and men in black. The other disappointments was the car parking which was extortionate at £10 per day, luckily I used the bus. The food was also disappointing, not that it wasn’t very nice but from the price factor again with a hot dog setting you back £5 just because it’s got the word posh in it, that’s right a “posh hot dog”. Anyway apart from that it was a successful tournament and I would urge the organisers to review what I’ve mentioned above to make next year’s tournament even better. Highlights of the week The first highlight came on Monday, through an initiative by the tournament which saw the winner of each game launch signed tennis balls into each of the four stands. Luckily for my catching are decent so I was able to catch the ball that Yanina Wickmayer aimed in my direction, albeit I had to dive across two seats to get it which made it even more impressive. The catch was greeted with the announcer on court saying “good catch sir”. So after this Wickmayer soon became a favourite and a player to root for. The next highlights came in a series on the other weekday I attended, Wednesday which involved two American’s (not like that before you ask). After a certain matches I would seek the winning player out and get a picture (or the more modern term, selfie) with them. On that day I got the first one with Alison Riske, who I have to say comes across as the most genuine player on tour given her friendly nature with fans and her positive attitude on court. The other selfie was with upcoming American Lauren Davis who during the week won fans over with her never say day attitude saving numerous match points throughout the tournament before bowing out. The final highlight was along the same lines as the previous and it was a picture with the eventual winner of the Elena Baltacha Aegon Open, Ana Konjuh who definitely has a bright future. One thing I found all week and to an extent knew already was that the majority of female tennis players are so down to earth and an absolute credit to the sport and WTA.
Looking forward to next year. |
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